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Thomas Starzl: The Dean of Transplantation
| Article
# : |
10568 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1993 |
2,939 Words |
| Author
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Heather B. Hayes
Heather B. Hayes is a freelance writer living in the
Washington, D.C., area. |
By its very nature, the liver is an anatomical wonder mysterious, challenging, and, even in today's sophisticated medical environment, often misunderstood. Weighing but three or four pounds, it is the body's only multifunctional organ, performing up to 500 metabolic functions essential to digestion and other bodily systems, including the absorption of fat and its conversion to carbohydrate, the regulation of blood's glucose and amino-acid levels, the manufacturing of important proteins, such as albumin and blood coagulants, and the detoxification of poisonous substances.
To a physician, however, a malfunctioning liver is difficult to diagnose and even more difficult to cure. Nearly all of the blood circulating through the body passes through the liver once every two minutes, a fact that considerably raises the possibility of a patient undergoing liver surgery to bleed to death.
Until as recently as 1963, there were only theorems about the liver, and hepatology (the study of the liver) was not even recognized as a medical specialty. It was the work of transplant pioneer Dr. Thomas Starzl that eventually provided as much if not more understanding of liver function than any one single physician. He was the first to put the theorems to test and in later years was a significant force in bringing about new concepts and practices in hepatology.
Starzl attempted the world's first human liver transplant in 1963; the patient lived for 29 days. Four years later he had greater success when he sewed a donated liver into a 19-month-old girl who was suffering from terminal liver cancer. Aided by an antirejection drug combination that Starzl developed, her body accepted the new organ, and she loved for 13 months. For the first time, there was hope for terminal liver patients. For Starzl, it was only a beginning.
Over the years, Starzl honed his technique and passed his knowledge on to other, younger surgeons working under him. He has since pioneered an innovative new procedure known as a "cluster" transplant, designed for patients with advanced abdominal cancer. The procedure involves removing the stomach, liver, pancreas, spleen, duodenum, jejunum, and ascending colon and replacing all but the stomach and spleen. Starzl and members of his team have also developed techniques for successfully transplanting islet cells (to combat insulin-dependency) and the small intestine, another organ few believed could be grafted.
Today, Starzl directs the
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